Dark Matter

There’s a woman in town
who used to live in a treehouse
screaming as if in ecstasy
over the least thing:

green leaves, TV Guide
hologram covers, ecstasy itself.
She woke the whole neighborhood
once a night at least.

Finally,
cops were sent
to take her down.
She surrendered at once.

As she was led away she was asked
for some reason for what she’d done. She said,
“I was lonely, and I knew
someone would come sooner or later.”

All over town it’s the same:
people living like bulls, pent up
and chock-a-block
with fertility and anger.

Look past the keno screens
and poker runs. Past the turkey shoots
and meat raffles. Past the single cruiser on
a weeknight, the cop crying from boredom.

See that woman leap past it
from the treehouse
into the waiting arms
of someone to talk to.

See the red cape fall.
See everyone paying attention.
See the earth smoke underfoot.
See the way they chase their long-denied joy.

One:

it’s snowing, but not sticking. limited visibility past the parking lot. ink, meet paper; screen, meet font.

Two:

choosing your life is like flipping a foreign coin, seeing the result, then walking away. you know what you got, but you never learn what was on the other side.

Three:

if you turn a guitar amplifier’s gain control all the way up you’ll hear the air crackle in front of the grille. the guitar itself won’t bark till it’s stroked. stroke it; you’ll hear the air grate fuzz and shatter itself solid. a life is like that; built of broken symphonics that are lovely because they are broken.

Four:

on the edge of the parking lot is a path. no footsteps in it. slick as a flatwound string. frost’s kind of trail. stay off it; no amount of silver will buy your way back out again, and there’s more than enough literature out there about such roads.

when do you leave?

money water electricity and time

you can take all
the money in my wallet
there’s not enough there
to pay attention

as for water i’ve
had enough in my life
to drown a coastline
wet my whistle
and put my fire out

electricity’s just another word
for how a fire starts
before it’s drowned

so now
it’s all up
to you:

give me one thing that truly lasts
one thing that stays strong forever
one immutable element to build on

if you’ve got nothing
then
all the money in your wallet
all the water over your head
all the current in your currency

won’t buy enough reach
to match my grasp

My old friend Paul David Mena has a column about haiku on gotpoetry.com that I thought many of you might like to check out.

It’s a particularly interesting column on his process this week.

There are also some associated links on the site that you might find interesting.

Haiku have always been one poetic form I have never enjoyed writing (and only marginally enjoyed reading), but I know many of you do, so here’s to it.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

I’m gonna stay away from here for a few days. Hit me backchannel if you need me.

Train Poem

I’m pulling away
from the platform.
Can’t say who’s
waving back there.

Freight today is antiques
and stopped watches. Can’t say
who’s getting them
at the end of the run.

The passengers sit in the second car
and play cards because they’ve seen all the movies
that said they should. Can’t say
who’s winning.

I’m smoking like a devil in hell
and missing every switch.
Forget what I left.
Can’t let a hand hold me.

Everyone’s hanging on for dear life
except the driver, the fireman, and the conductor.
They jumped off miles back. Can’t see anything
but straight on to where the view disappears.

Poem From a Reptile Son

“three things to recall, son,
if you are ever
in a knife fight:

one, a knife fight
that lasts more than thirty seconds
is being fought by two amateurs.

two,
expect
to get cut.

three, you must become
a reptile when you fight.
you get your humanity back by winning,

but never all of it.
some part of you
will grow scales.

you’ll need a rock
in your dreams at night
to warm yourself on.

for the rest of your life
you’ll shed skins but never look
any different,

a little of you can break off
and if you leave it behind
people will think they’ve got you.”

this is what my lean father told me
without ever looking at me as he showed me his scars
and explained how he sharpened his knife.

they say that mammals love
and reptiles cast offspring aside
to fend for themselves.

they know nothing. I still have
the knife my father gave me. I’ve grown
scales in his honor.

I never face anyone
for more than thirty seconds.
no one’s got any of me that matters.

This will be among my resolutionary-type things for the year, by the way…

I’m going to tell you up front that I’ve done some thinking here, and I am not especially comfortable with what I’m about to reveal; but I think it needs saying, and the resulting actions will need reinforcement from you, among others.

1.
After some soul-searching: I am, admittedly, anti-Christian.

Not anti extremism, not anti fundamentalism, not anti-intolerance or theocracy; truly, I am anti Christian, as in the base dogma of the faiths that have derived from the Christian mythos bother me and disturb me, run counter to my own beliefs, and makes me feel threatened and angry.

I admit this now, knowing it is deeply uncool to admit a bias of this sort; I am sorry for those of you offended, upset, and disgusted with this. Please bear with me as I move forward.

2.
My deep seated dislike and anger at the social structures we live within is at least in part driven by this. There is, of course, more to it, far more; but I think this is a large underpinning of how I see the world.

3.
One of my resolutions for this year will be to work harder, much harder, to ensure that my actions do not draw so deeply from this bias; that I do no let my blinders about Christianity keep me from seeing and befriending and treating with respect and fairness those I meet; and that when I take a stand on an issue of morality and value, it will not simply be “not Christian, so OK.”

4.
At the same time, I’ll work harder to define morality and values in ways that allow others in while not compromising my own spiritual values in pursuit of harmony.

There’s more to be said, of course; specifics, history, examples. But not now.

Now, I just want it out there.

Help hold me to it.

Edit: I think, upon reading this, that I should reframe my issue as one of being “anti-Christianity”, not “anti-Christian.” An important difference, I think.

We spent it in Boston with the recently married Dan and Mike, who just got back from Laos and Southern Thailand. (Yup, in the area hit by the tsunami. They just beat it.)

You’re definitely getting old when the drinking is done by 8:30 and you’re all too tired to open champagne at midnight, so you have a contest to see who can “pop” a finger in their mouth like a cork loud enough to make us feel festive while playing Chinese checkers.

I lost at both, although I did put away a half-bottle of Six Grapes tawny port by myself.

Woo.

More later.

It feels to me like no one is answering the question I posed in my previous post. I posted it late, so I may not have been clear enough.

For the record, I understand the difference between religious extremism and religion, faith and spirituality. I understand that all traditions have been abused. I understand that political ends have been met under the guise of religion throughout human history.

My questions, put more directly, are these:

Is the American Left explicitly anti-Christian? Why?

Are you? How do YOU know if you are or you’re not? (I am ashamed to admit that I am.)

Does it matter to our efforts (for those of you who count yourself Lefty) that we do something about this?

Bring it on. I just painted a huge bullseye on myself for your shooting pleasure.

and I just made it far worse by listening to Dinosaur Jr, the Smiths, Ministry, and Lone Justice, in that order.

I have a sudden urge to put on a black leather cowboy suit, dye my hair blonde, and mope while having myself whipped to a screaming, incoherent frenzy accompanied by skronking, inconceivably overdriven guitar riffs.

Killing Joke is coming up. Add some Brit-crank aggro-punk, and you can tell where this is going…

no more work getting done this year.

FIVE FAVORITE SONGS BY X:

“Adult Books”
“I Must Not Think Bad Thoughts”
“Devil Doll”
“Surprise Surprise”
“The New World”

FIVE ARTICLES OF CLOTHING I RECENTLY DISCARDED:

Ripped T-Shirt from NPS ’96
Elvis Presley’s codpiece
A pear-scented dog collar
Worn out “Physician’s Assistant Martens” (bargain brand)
Tighty used to be Whiteys

FIVE THINGS MY CAT THREW UP RECENTLY:

Elvis Presley’s codpiece
Dominick Dunne
Solid gold cufflinks previously owned by Fabio
Tuna
Tuning fork

FIVE PHRASES I HAVE SHOUTED DURING THE PHYSICAL ACT OF LOVE:

Give me that lollipop and no one gets hurt!
Now, then, where the hell is that codpiece?
Dwarves! Dwarves everywhere!!!
Get that otter off me, you goddamn psycho!
The square of the hypotenuse of a right triangle is equal to the sum of the squares of the opposite sides!

FIVE OF MY FAVORITE FOODS:
Salmon in a citrus fennel marinade
Peanut butter and cream cheese on wheat bread
Great Italian bread dipped in oil and spices
Tomatoes and fresh mozzarella in oil and vinegar, preferably in Santa Fe
Cheetos

FIVE GREAT LEADERS OF OUR GENERATION:

Um, I’ll come back to this. Maybe later. Much later.

FIVE GREATEST MEMES OF ALL TIME:
The one about the colors!
The one about who you will be best suited for in love!
The one about the celebrity you are most like!
The one about the band you should be in!
The one about sheepiness!

Add your own!!!!!

my mother used to say
sing before seven,
cry before eleven. meaning

don’t let yourself be too happy.
don’t think about it. don’t even try.
give up the morning and settle for dusk,

and don’t imagine what it would be like
if the lights never came on again, because
there was never any power anyway.

don’t conjure
hope
you can’t handle.

don’t ask for mercy.
don’t turn your bed into a music hall
and expect a dance troupe to come through.

the arms of god are nearly endless,
some poet said. point being, of course, that
they do end. i should know, because god’s got me good —

that bricklayer’s
paw up in
my puppet hole.

but i keep my mouth shut, and i feel nothing.
i don’t even hum when i get up. i was well prepared.
mom was smart. i thank her every morning.

The world’s big insurance companies have indicated that they won’t be adversely affected by the tsunami, because so little of the property involved was insured and the population was generally too poor to have insurance.

Here’s a link to the story.

Whew.

“how about that tsunami?” “the one in indonesia?” “yeah, that one”

All day there’s been a stream of visitors
to the world map on my cubicle wall,
co-workers come to look for the place where it all happened.

Should I be surprised that on at least five occasions
I’ve had to point at the Indian Ocean
and then do a quick finger tour around the rim?

Or should I be heartened that at least
they came by to look? Or that they knew
the map was here? It’s evidence, after all, that

the wave reached beyond Aceh. The wave
hit everything. It’s just that not everything
got wet enough to make a body feel,

and we have money, like paper towels, to
keep the damp out. I wish I knew if I should cry
or just keep going back to the wall to point it out again:

here is Phuket, here Aceh, here Sri Lanka, here Tamil Nadu,
here Pondicherry, here Chennai. Here is Myanmar
which has been silent. Here we are in the United States,

and here is everyone else.

Be it resolved that use of the phrases “primordial chaos” and “rain streaked window,” or any use of the word “soul” that does not involve references to Ray Charles, Marvin Gaye, Etta James, or Aretha Franklin, will be punishable by subjecting the poet to a term of no less than fifteen and no more than thirty consecutive recitations of the collected works of Matty Furmanek in pig Latin.

By Donald Rumsfeld.